The role of next-gen firewalls in an evolving security architecture

Understanding the current state of enterprise firewall technology requires first debunking two broadly held misconceptions:

• First, many believe the firewall has become less relevant in contemporary enterprise network security architectures, for a variety of reasons: the ubiquitous use of mobile devices and cloud computing have expanded the traditional network perimeter; trendy concepts like “zero trust” networking have deemphasized the firewall in favor of access control and data protection mechanisms; and the increasing virtualization of networking has abstracted firewall functions like segmentation and packet filtering.
• Second, because of its origins as a packet-filtering device, many perceive the firewall as a limited-purpose construct, with little relevance beyond enterprise security. While close consultation with network and application operations teams have long been commonplace, firewall architecture planning, purchasing decisions, and often deployment and management have typically been overseen or at least directed by an enterprise’s chief information security officer (CISO) and those on his or her team. In turn, it didn’t matter much whether a buyer selected a firewall from Vendor A or Vendor B; they weren’t that different.

The reality is that the firewall is rapidly evolving, not only in what it can do, but also in its business value to the enterprise. It is becoming the cornerstone of hybrid cloud network security, offering integration enablement, consistent controls and comprehensive monitoring and alerting across multiple cloud and on-premises environments. Simultaneously, the firewall’s feature set is expanding beyond the realm of traditional network security to include a fascinating variety of features not necessarily limited to security. Looking forward, key technological developments, including encryption, artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) and the internet of things (IoT), will arguably make the enterprise firewall more important than it has ever been.

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